


One Thing Sam Learned About His Brother

by samidha



Category: Supernatural
Genre: D/s only, Dom Sam Winchester, Dom/sub, Exactly What It Says on the Tin, Multi, Off-screen Relationship(s), POV Sam Winchester, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, Season/Series 03, Sub Dean Winchester, They are not romantically involved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 22:00:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11746023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/samidha
Summary: A kink meme fill, what it says on the tin. (This fit the prompt, Winchester style.)





	One Thing Sam Learned About His Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Uploading a TON of fic, not backdating a few, this was written at the end of August 2009 but I really think it's one of my better fics so I'm not backdating it into obscurity.

The thing is that it had always been this way, in one form or another. In the beginning, when Dean was feeling together, he'd always made sure to take care of Sammy, do his one job. It started because there had been no other way, they'd just been brothers then with a dead mother and, well, Dad. Sam didn't--couldn't--always know what any of that meant, how later it would be like the glue that held Dean together, but Sam was always a quick learner. So if Dean started falling apart with worry over Dad, and they had any money for groceries at all, he cooked. When he knew that they were headed into a case, a _bad_ one, something that seemed too big... he maybe tried to clean a little, in his way.

He was still Dean, after all, king of empty burger wrappers and vending machine loot, but sometimes he just got a little bit overboard about it all.

He might not have managed the whole hotel room, because Dean's attention span was never that great once he'd finished his primary objective, but he'd always give Sam's half of the room a once over.

And Sam knew he had to let Dean do that stuff--he even grew to like it--but he didn't need it. He'd come home to his bed clearly made for a second time because Dean's military corners were always better than his and he'd just know.

Dean told himself he loved the life, he'd embraced it, but he always knew that if Dean was making military corners he was erratic and _worried_. He could get snappish, even clingy, needing to--

Needing to serve. And not just some random stranger, no matter what the threat. No, it was Dean needing to serve _him_.

When Sam was in his junior year of high school, Dad stepped up his involvement in the hunts. He was gone for longer and he told Dean less and less. So Dean did more. He stayed with Sam and he learned to clean the whole place they were staying in and he didn't say anything, because there was nothing to say. He only knew that his brother was worried, but talking about that would make it _real_ , mire them both in how fucked up this life really was. So he didn't say anything and neither did Dean, but he was a fast learner and he could read between the lines. He was going to have to figure out something to do. So in between chem finals and pre-calc and history, he read. Or, when he was home alone before Dean got back from his one of his jobs (mechanic during the week, hardware store on the weekends, at least while they were in Nebraska for two months alone), Sam took what he read and plugged words into search engines.

The things Altavista came back with were... well... weird, even for them. Sam was sure Dean wasn't a masochist--at least not in the just-for-fun way that these people seemed to be talking about. They saw too much real pain in their day-to-day lives for Dean to want that, didn't they? Anyway, he didn't ever ask Sam--he wouldn't ask Sam for most of these things. They weren't lovers, they were brothers. But something, one word, stuck in the back of Sam's mind all the same: _submissive_.

A part of Sam really, really didn't want to even think about any of that and Dean in the same _universe_ , but in another part of Sam's brain, he turned over that word and something clicked into place.

With that knowledge firmly rooted in his mind, he couldn't help but watch his brother through a new lens. Sam had been watching Dean his whole life, and now everything that he'd suspected was thrown into sharp relief. He saw the way that Dean always served Sam's food first. He saw that when there was money the first thing it went into was Sam's favorite food. He knew that his brother needed to do these things, needed to have something that he was doing to contribute when they were both off of the hunt, but he thought about the word _submissive_ and a line started to blur in his head. If Dean needed this, and if Sam was who he had-- Could Sam really deal with his brother needing this-- _from him_? 

Whatever Dean needed, he knew what he needed even better. He had one year left of high school and he knew that he was getting the hell out of there whether he and Dean ever talked about any of this or not. There wasn't anything he could do about it, anyway. He was _Dean's brother_. And all of the books and websites Sam had read talked about lovers, partners, _play partners_. He and Dean weren't those things.

And Sam left for college, and he didn't know what Dean was going to do about the ways that he'd kept calm before, but he figured that with him gone Dad would have no choice but to take Dean on all the hunts possible. It had always been the down-time that had gotten under Dean's skin.

Four years later, in the dark of his apartment, Dean's eyes were wild and confused and he had a flicker of doubt, but he still knew--whatever Dean needed, it wasn't his _responsibility_ to give it, damn it. Dean was his own man.

Then Dean turned on a dime and arrived just in time to pull Sam out of a burning building--again--and Sam thought maybe the equation had changed.

The months went by as they sped across the country, and he remembered what he read as he watched Dean. Dean who was all calm composure and a steady hand on his gun, fine through hunt after hunt until the pressure built and built. He knew the signs already but this time he took them seriously, recognized them for what they were. He remembered what he'd read and slowly he put it into practice. In between hunts, when Dean needed to let loose, he carved out the time and gave it to his brother. He learned when he needed to step in and take control. After a hunt, with adrenaline falling away and nothing on the horizon, Dean eventually fell back into pattern, followed a natural progression: scared-notsafe-needthis-safe. And if his brother needed him to make him feel safe, well, then, he could understand that. Living the life they had, it was a wonder that Dean felt safe a day in his life.

In the end, knowing that Dean could find safety this way made him start to feel safe again too, even when he pressed Dean up against motel room doors and murmured _demands_ , demands he knew his brother wanted and _needed_ to fulfill. Sometimes Sam's feeling of safety was heady and perfect and right. They could fall into role and make a grab for it even after the worst hunt. Other times it was the scariest and hardest thing imaginable, because if Dean needed to take care of Sam then Sam needed to take care of Dean right back, needed to give Dean that space, needed to _protect_. 

Things were bad enough when he missed a step on a hunt and his brother ended up with a slice down his arm or a gouge in his chest. He knew that making this conscious choice was something new, that doing this he saw his brother _vulnerable_ in a way he never had before. He had to take what Dean willingly gave him and he had to honor and guard that piece of Dean.

Dean needed to protect Sam like he needed air but it was never supposed to go as far as it had. It wasn't right. Sam realized again how twisted up this all was, how really Dean had needed someone else to fill that role--a lover or at least a kinkster, someone who _knew how to do this_ , not the boy he'd been raising for his entire life.

But Dean only had him, at least in his day-to-day, fucked up hunter's life. So he could do nothing but fill that space when there was more than a day or two of down-time and Dean was shaking apart again, (please we need to be safe please Sammy), because Dean wouldn't ask but it was something Sam could see, something he could offer up, because someone needed to.

Then there was nothing left but that one last year when everything ratcheted up three notches. Neither of them knew safety anymore but all he could do was take care of Dean--just give him the space--while Dean took care of him. So the hunts they did, Dean picked, and he compulsively neatened motel rooms and the Impala. He did too much laundry and rolled Sam's clothes for him, splurged on rooms with kitchenettes and made mac'n'cheese (from a box, but that wasn't the point) and sloppy joes and tuna melts whenever they could afford it.

He didn't need these things, but he needed his brother and this was what Dean could (had to) give to him, so he took the gestures for what he'd learned that they were. Dean still left Sam most nights if they weren't hustling, came home wide-eyed and loose from a night with a barfly, but never before he knew his brother was settled. And Dean always came home to him.

Unless Dean didn't, and then he knew that the fear was winning out--not the fear that kept Dean craving safety in a mad world, but the fear for his immortal soul. Then there was nothing to do but go back out into the night after his brother under the weight of crushing guilt and _find_ him and bring him home.

"Gotta remember I did right by you, Sammy," Dean said on those nights, slurring a little and letting Sam support him on their way between a bar and the room, "I took care of you... Always took care of you... Gotta remember...eat right when I'm gone, or 'least like my mac'n'cheese now." It would be funny, Dean telling him to eat right, if it wasn't so goddamn scary and wrong and not his brother talking, just the fear. But he didn't have time to dwell on that now. Not with Dean needing him back, needing him to be strong.

"I will, Dean, I do. You're doin' so good," Sam replied, keeping his voice firm and in control even though he could barely breathe. That last year, he thought sometimes that maybe this was what Dad had felt like in the beginning. Like he was just going to shatter. "Doin' so good," he said, forcing himself to keep his attention on Dean. _At least he's here_ , Sam thought, pulling him into their room, laying him on the bed and pulling off his boots.

"Keeps you safe," Dean whispered thickly, and Sam nodded even though Dean's eyes were already closed.

"Always do, Dean."

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt was for 24/7 D/s with a focus on domesticity. I don't write curtainfic generally, and neither would the Winchesters, but this is the prompt, Winchester style.


End file.
